Awfully Good: Ed

With the Olympics in full swing I was in the mood for a bad sports movie. Some faithful Awfully Good readers gave me more than I bargained for.

Ed (1996)

Director: Bill CouturiéStars: Matt LeBlanc, Jack Warden, Jim Caviezel

Joey from "Friends" plays baseball with a monkey.

You may or may not remember ED. It was one of many movies during Hollywood's mid-90s simian preoccupation that gave us stuff like DUNSTON CHECKS IN, BORN TO BE WILD and the Thora Birch-Harvey Keitel classic MONKEY TROUBLE. It's really only notable for three things: 1) being Matt LeBlanc's debut cinematic failure; 2) being one of the most embarrassing films having to do with sports; and 3) breaking the age-old the rule that says adding a monkey to anything will automatically make it better.

"How you doin'?" didn't just work on women.

That last point doesn't really count considering there's not a real chimpanzee within 10 miles of this movie. Instead, the filmmakers make the mind-boggling decision to use a human in a crappy monkey suit for the entire movie. (I can see getting away with it for the baseball scenes, but for everything else too? That's just lazy.) The result is the most noticeably fake simian since CONGO. With his laughably inaccurate size and grunting noises, Ed is not believable for one single second of the movie that bears his name, to the point that I half-expected a twist ending where they reveal he was a man-in-suit the entire time. That being said, the guy in the monkey costume is still a better actor than Matt LeBlanc.

It was stuff like this that made the rest of the cast request LeBlanc's dressing room be moved to the other side of the lot.

It also doesn't help that ED was clearly written by someone who doesn't know the basic differences between apes and humans. It's almost like the movie was originally about a child named Ed, and at the last minute they decided to switch the kid out with a monkey. Everyone treats the chimp like a person and it acts accordingly. When we first meet him, Ed has taken a Greyhound bus by himself across the country, arriving without a trainer or caregiver. People talk to Ed like they would a human and he understands them. He knows the Star Spangled Banner, can drive a car when the team needs a designated driver, and at one point is even left alone to babysit a little girl while Matt LeBlanc goes MILF hunting. And it goes without saying that of course the monkey is awesome at baseball, understanding the rules of the game and able to throw the ball so hard it literally burns holes in gloves. It's casually mentioned that Ed belonged to Mickey Mantle so his skills need no further explanation.

Step 1: Add monkey.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!

Is there anything to enjoy in this otherwise toxic kids movie? Maybe a couple things. There's a serious "I have a dream…" moment where Ed is almost not allowed to play, until the African American umpire makes a patriotic speech about how baseball is America's game and doesn’t discriminate based on race, religion or "amount of body hair." And then there's the impressive, unending amount of toilet humor in the film. Ed is constantly farting, belching or letting loose other bodily functions. (We'll ignore the fact that LeBlanc's character's nickname is Deuce.) I swear, at least a quarter of this movie is dedicated to watching the monkey loudly take dumps in the bathroom, get in to farting contests with people, or violently grabbing his junk to signal he has to take a leak. You will never forget the time you watched Joey from "Friends" and a man in a chimpanzee costume moan and sigh as they pee in to the same toilet. Trust me.

It was a lot of work, but necessary if you wanted to rid yourself of Schwimmer Stank ®.

This first line is so bad that it had to be a sarcastic ad lib they just kept in the movie.

Think I was kidding about all the toilet humor? Watch this hilarious compilation of Ed ruining Matt LeBlanc's life through pooping, farting, peeing and other things that don't belong in a kids movie.